The OWL Flight Plan Project Team at The University of Western Ontario has landed on Sakai to replace WebCT, the university’s current learning management systems (LMS).
“The new LMS will open new ways for engaging faculty and students in teaching and learning,” says Jean Savage, Western ITS associate director, client support and a member of the project team. She is excited about the new possibilities for collaborating and sharing the Sakai platform will bring to the Western.
Over the past year, the university community provided feedback on their requirements and evaluated two LMS options. That information guided the selection of Sakai. Both the community and the project team were impressed by the system’s reliability and ease of use. This open-source LMS is developed and supported by more than 350 educational institutions worldwide.
The Sakai Foundation, a non-profit corporation that encourages community-building and provides its members with an institutional framework for their projects, ensures stability to the product moving forward. Sakai’s transparency and collaborative philosophy allows Western to participate in the development of the core product and the future direction of the LMS.
Initial development of Sakai was funded by the Mellon Foundation in 2004 through The Sakai Foundation. Its original institutions include the University of Michigan, Indiana University, Stanford University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Version 1.0 was released in March 2005.
“Choosing an open-source product provides us with flexibility, freedom from vendor restrictions and an opportunity to collaborate with partners to guide the future direction of OWL,” Savage says.
Going forward, Western will contract a commercial affiliate to help with implementation. A small pilot of the new OWL is planned for January 2012 with a full-size pilot during the following summer. WebCT will continue to be used for the coming 2011 academic year.
In 2005, WebCT was acquired by Blackboard Inc. The company has since announced that support for the product will be discontinued by January 2013. Given Western has been using WebCT since 1998, this was an ideal opportunity to review campus needs and plan for the future.
For updated information on the project, visit the OWL Flight Plan website.